Yep and paying attention to actions and not words/failed promises. I find it so very hard to believe that Alaskan voters were taken in by promises of numerous ( multitudes of ? ) high paying jobs for them. This does not even take into account the damage that these oil companies are gonna do in their expansion - while paying in even less to the state for doing it.

The people of Massachusetts should see the evidence of their candidates positions and decide. She ain't runnin of course & targeting one candidate might break forum rules against campaigning but you should run with it.

You wanna suck corporate cock ?! Go ahead and be my guest !! BUT ignorance is NOT an option !!!

''One of the keys to sustainability and durability in times of environmental stress is biodiversity. This means the existence of many varieties of plants and of the insects, fungi and bacteria they require for survival so that food can be produced under different conditions. So with climate change upon us, the environment is in a state of great stress : more extreme weather and new varieties of insects moving from south to north and new weeds, are becoming common. This is a time when biodiversity is more important than ever.

''Yet years of chemical-based agriculture have poisoned the air, water, soil and food supplies, which has killed many living things and decreased biodiversity. In addition to causing disease in humans, the use of herbicides and pesticides is contributing to a rapid species extinction of beneficial plants, insects and animals.

''Monsanto is now pushing agriculture toward less biodiversity by concentrating the world's seed supply under its control. Through promotion of their genetically altered crops, contamination of traditional seeds and the practice of monopolization, Monsanto is rapidly dominating our global food system.

''Monsanto's genes are currently found in 40 percent of the crops grown in the United States. A March 2013 report found 86 percent of corn, 88 percent of cotton and 93 percent of soybeans farmed in the US are now genetically engineered (GE) varieties, making the option of farming non-GE crops increasingly difficult. As GE crops spread and infect or mix with traditional crops, it is becoming harder to preserve traditional seeds.'' Excerpted from :

The reality tho', is that you right wing, 'heart-centre blocked', misanthropes - will seldom if ever, engage with any view which requires an expansive compassion because in your sad world, loving others makes you hate yourself !!

Everything is genetically altered by the fact of our existence - antibiotics on bacteria, evolutionary predisposition based on selective breeding and diet and lifestyle. Even the crops that are grown are going through genetic changes. I do not give a shit about Monsanto's stake in the global market. It is not possible to go back to the type of crops that were in existence 2 centuries ago. People are breeding like rabbits and the average lifespan is increasing steadily. The crops that are coming along have to be higher yield and higher resistance to both drought and disease.

Yes, I know you all think I am an obnoxious ingnorant prick. But I want to learn more. I imagine that you oppose Monsanto due to their size and the damage that you believe that they have caused the environment. So, how will a co-opt or whatever you call it come up with the technology and resources to create a crop that will survive in a hostile environment?

''Monsanto's actions truly affect each of us. They put their profits over the need for healthy foods, diverse seed supplies and the stability of the agricultural economy. They employ a variety of tools to control access to seeds and aggressively push genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and toxic chemicals despite serious safety concerns about them. And they accomplish this with great help from the US government.'' from :

Also consider that : ''Monsanto controls our food, poisons our land, and influences all three branches of government. Forty percent of the crops grown in the United States contain their genes. They produce the world’s top selling herbicide. Several of their factories are now toxic Superfund sites. They spend millions lobbying the government each year. It’s time we take a closer look at who’s controlling our food, poisoning our land, and influencing all three branches of government. To do that, the watchdog group Food and Water Watch recently published a corporate profile of Monsanto.'' from :

Further : ''Monsanto is at the forefront of GMO seeds and litigation against vulnerable farmers. To date the company has won over half of its patent infringement lawsuits. The Supreme Court is currently weighing the arguments in Bowman vs. Monsanto, which asks if a company can have a claim on a farmer whose crops were derived from a seed already paid for. More significantly, the question is whether a company can claim the rights to a form of life that has been nurtured by communities of farmers for centuries ?'' from :

There has been mixed news for the agrochemical giant Monsanto recently. On the one hand, there was the surprise announcement on June 1 by company spokesman Brandon Mitchener: "We are no longer working on lobbying for more cultivation in Europe... Currently we do not plan to apply for the approval of new genetically modified crops."

The embattled corporation has decided to stop tilting against the windmill of European resistance to its controversial biotech seeds. Eight EU nations have already prohibited GM (genetically modified) cultivation on their territory and banned the import of genetically modified foods from abroad.

But Monsanto's prospects in the United States took a very different turn last month when the US Supreme Court ordered Indiana farmer Vernon Bowman to pay Monsanto over $80,000 for planting its GM soybean seeds. Bowman had purchased the seeds from a grain elevator rather than from Monsanto itself, as their corporate contract requires. The seeds had been saved from an earlier crop.

For as long as humans have been growing food, farmers have saved seeds from their harvest to sow the following year. But Monsanto and other big seed companies have changed the rules of the game. They have successfully argued that they spend millions of dollars developing new crop varieties and that these products should be treated as proprietary inventions with full patent protection. Just as one can't legally reproduce a CD or DVD, farmers are now prohibited from copying the GM seeds that they purchase from companies like Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and Syngenta.

In one sense, these corporations no longer sell seeds - they lease them, requiring farmers to renew their lease with every subsequent growing season. Monsanto itself compares its GM seeds to rental cars. When you are finished using them, rights revert to the owner of the "intellectual property" contained within the seed.

Some farmers have saved their seeds anyway (called "brown bagging"), in some cases to save money, in others because they don't like the big companies telling them how to farm. Monsanto has responded with an all-out effort to track down the brown baggers and prosecute them as an example to others who might be tempted to violate its patent. By aggressively enforcing its "no replant policy," Monsanto has initiated a permanent low-grade war against farmers. At the time of this writing, the company had not responded to emailed questions about its seed saving policies.

"I don't know of [another] company that chooses to sue its own customer base," Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety told Vanity Fair Magazine. "It's a very bizarre business strategy."

Yet the strategy appears to be working. Over 90 percent of the soybeans, corn, canola and cotton grown in the United States are patented genetically modified organisms (commonly known as GMOs). The soybean variety that Bowman planted has proved popular with farmers because it has been modified to survive multiple sprayings by Monsanto's best-selling herbicide Roundup, whose active agent is glyphosate. While Monsanto claims that GMOs increase crop yields, there is little evidence that this is the case. The chemical giant turned seed company also claims that the new technology decreases the need for agrochemicals. Yet 85 percent of all GM crops are bred to be herbicide resistant, which has meant that pesticide use is increasing as a result of the spread of GM crops. What GMOs were designed to do - and indeed accomplish - is create plants that can be grown efficiently in the chemical-intensive large scale monocultures that dominate American agriculture.

But the dominance of GMOs has come at a cost. In addition to the uncertain environmental impacts of the GMOs and the chemicals that are used to grow them as well as the possible negative health impacts of eating genetically modified foods, their production is sowing seeds of conflict in America's rural heartland. Worldwatch Institute says that the GMO regime has initiated a "new era of feudalism," no longer by wealthy landowners, but by powerful multinationals who have consolidated their control over the lives and practices of farmers everywhere.

Like the old feudalism, the new one is backed by the iron fist of the law. Bowman is just one of the untold thousands of farmers who have run afoul of Monsanto's legal department in recent years. You don't even need to be a farmer to be targeted by the multinational. Ask Gary Rinehart.

As reported in 2008 in Vanity Fair, Rinehart was standing behind the counter at the Fair Deal, an old-fashioned country store that he owns in Eagleville, Missouri, when a man strode in and accused him - in front of his customers - of illegally planting patented seeds. "Monsanto is big," the stranger announced. "You can't win. We will get you. You will pay."

It must have seemed like a bad joke to Rinehart, who owns no farmland and doesn't plant seeds. He doesn't even sell them. The shopkeeper told the obnoxious stranger to get the hell out of his store. But it didn't end there. Some weeks later Rinehart was served with court papers from Monsanto which was suing him for sowing second-generation seeds, which it said were produced from Monsanto's genetic stock.

Rinehart fared better than Bowman. He easily won his case against America's largest seed company. Everyone in town - including the judge - knew that Rinehart was not a farmer. Even Monsanto eventually realized that it had targeted the wrong man. But they didn't send him a letter of apology, or offer to pay his lawyer's fees. Rinehart never heard from the company again.

"I don't know how they get away with it," Rinehart told Vanity Fair. "If I tried to do something like that it would be bad news. I felt like I was in another country."

Sadly, Rinehart is hardly alone in feeling like a character in a middle-American Kafka novel. Monsanto boasts one of the largest corporate security operations in the world, with agents working both openly and undercover in rural counties throughout the United States and Canada. Monsanto's investigators show up at front doors, and in some cases in the middle of farmers fields, making accusations, brandishing surveillance photos and demanding to see the farmer's private records or to be handed over their hard drives.

Bill Freese, a science policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety (CFS), told Truthout that these investigators will say things like, "Monsanto knows that you are saving Roundup Ready seeds, and if you don't sign these information-release forms, Monsanto is going to come after you and take your farm or take you for all you're worth."

Of the hundreds of cases that Monsanto pursues every year "the great majority end in out-of-court settlements," Freese said. "Farmers are terrified of standing up to the multinational and losing everything."

The litigious corporation claims that it has transformed the way farming is done and that big changes require tough action. "This is part of the agricultural revolution, and any revolution is painful," Karen Marshall, a spokeswoman for Monsanto in St. Louis told the Washington Post in 1999. "But the technology is good technology."

In the effort to police its "revolution," Monsanto does not limit itself to suing errant farmers. It also monitors farmer's co-ops, silo owners, seed-sellers, virtually anyone who has dealings with their patented seeds. And it employs tactics that may occasionally put it on the wrong side of the law. Iowa corn farmer Scott McAllister told Daily Finance that company investigators broke into his house, tapped his phones and "tailed his vehicles," charges which company spokesman Mica Veihman denied. But McAllister's allegations of Monsanto's extralegal intimidation of farmers is hardly unique.

Debbie Barker with the public interest organization Save Our Seeds alleges in a 2013 report issued jointly by her group and the Center for Food Safety that a Monsanto agent forged the signature of Anthony Parr, an Illinois seed-cleaner, in an effort to convict him of "aiding and abetting" farmers by processing their seeds for replanting.

Seed cleaners like Parr remove chaff and weed seed from harvested seed. Parr said that he was not aware that the seeds he cleaned were Monsanto's. Nevertheless, he racked up over $25,000 in legal fees before even setting foot in a courtroom and, like so many others, reluctantly settled out of court. Parr lost almost 90 percent of his former customers, who were afraid that associating with the hapless seed-cleaner would lead to prosecution against them as well.

Monsanto has spared no expense in its effort to nab patent violators. As early as 2003, the corporation had a department of 75 employees (dubbed "the gene police") with a budget of $10 million for the sole purpose of pursuing farmers for patent infringement, according to the Center for Food Safety/Save Our Seeds report. It has also hired a private investigation firm, McDowell & Associates in Saint Louis. This investment has produced ample returns over the years. An analysis by the Center for Food Safety used Monsanto's own records to estimate that, as of 2006, farmers had paid the company an estimated $85 to $160 million in out-of-court settlements.

Monsanto's investigatory and prosecutorial efforts are likely even larger today. However, the company no longer publishes this information, and they recently withdrew the data which CFS used to make their estimate from its Internet site. [See page 6 of PDF.]

In its war against "seed pirates," Monsanto employs methods that are better known in law enforcement and military intelligence than in the world of farming. Monsanto analyzes satellite images, USDA planting data and bank records in its effort to track down errant farmers. Freese told Truthout that Monsanto agents sometimes pretend that they are conducting surveys of seed and chemical purchases and impersonate farmers or surveyors. Freese described one incident in Illinois, where a Monsanto investigator bragged that the company routinely hires retired farmers to pose as seed sellers in an effort to nab unsuspecting buyers in sting-type operations. Monsanto also has its own toll-free tip-line (1-800-ROUNDUP) where farmers are invited to inform on their neighbors, as thousands have reportedly already done.

"Instead of helping each other with barn-raisings and equipment sharing," a CFS report states, "those caught saving seed, a practice that is hundreds of years old, were turned into 'spies' against their neighbors, replacing the atmosphere of cooperation with one of distrust and suspicion." Critics accuse the company of fraying the delicate social fabric which holds farming communities together.

Saskatchewan Canola farmer Percy Schmeiser was even more direct when he spoke to The Washington Post in 1999 about what he said farmers in his area called "a reign of terror ... Everyone's looking at each other and asking, 'Did my neighbor say something?'"

In a now legendary incident, Schmeiser's fields were contaminated by seeds from a neighbor's genetically modified Roundup Ready canola plants, which had blown onto his land. When the farmer, who was the subject of the 2009 film "David Versus Monsanto," saved the seeds from these "accidental migrants" for replanting, Monsanto sued him for patent infringement and won the case but received no damages, since the court determined that Schmeiser had gained no economic benefit from the incident. Later Schmeiser countersued Monsanto for "libel, trespass, and contamination of his fields with Roundup Ready Canola." But that case was dismissed.

Schmeiser, who reportedly spent more than $400,000 on legal fees, says he can no longer use his strain of canola, which took him 50 years to develop, because he cannot prove that it doesn't include the Roundup Ready gene.

Organic farmers complain that the drift of pollen and seeds from GMO fields invade their own crops, which is increasingly making it difficult for them to maintain their organic standards.

Thierry Vrain, a former research scientist for Agriculture Canada noted on the Food Revolution Network, "Genetic pollution is so prevalent in North and South America where GM crops are grown that the fields of conventional and organic growers are regularly contaminated with engineered pollen and losing certification. The canola and flax export market from Canada to Europe (hundreds of millions of dollars) were recently lost because of genetic pollution."

This kind of biological pollution has also happened in Mexico, where traditional corn plants (there are 150 unique varieties in the southern state of Oaxaca alone) were discovered to have been contaminated by genes from transgenic "industrial corn" planted in nearby fields.

What effect this cross-pollination will have on the integrity of Mexico's staple crop is not yet known. But multiple studies have confirmed that it has already taken place in regions throughout Mexico. There is also anecdotal evidence of grotesquely deformed native corn plants which contained the genetically modified genes.

A Monsanto brochure boasts, "The good news is that practical experience clearly demonstrates that the coexistence of biotech, conventional and organic systems is not only possible, but it is peacefully occurring around the world."

The reality on the ground, however, tells a different story. Far from peacefully coexisting with other forms of agriculture, the new biotechnology is rapidly swallowing up traditional farming in the United States. GM cultivation, with its economies of scale, is proving the latest nail in the coffin of family farming.

Moreover, a small number of "high performing" GMOs increasingly dominate; fewer varieties of crops are being planted today than ever before. The Big Ag companies claim that they need patent protection to encourage the costly development of new seed varieties, but Freese told Truthout that Monsanto spends more buying up independent seed companies (to the tune of an estimated $960 million a year) than on its research and development budget.

The result of this monopolistic consolidation, according to critics, has been less innovation, rather than more. Not only are the companies spending less on creating new conventional crops, but publicly funded agricultural research and breeding, which for most of the 20th century was the main driver of agricultural development in the US, declined precipitously in recent years, according to a recent study by the American Enterprise Institute. Perhaps worst of all, the creativity which fueled thousands of years of farmer experimentation becomes impossible when growers are prohibited from replanting seeds.

In the past, farmers selected seeds for traits they wanted to develop in their crops such as taste, size, nutrition and suitability to changing local growing conditions. This ongoing process of selection has led to the fabulous diversity of fruits, grains and vegetables which were developed by untold numbers of farmers over the centuries. Nowadays, however, that selection process is increasingly being frozen by a corporate agricultural system which selects for one trait alone - greater profitability.

Monsanto's profits from its burgeoning seed business recently reached an all-time high. However, the bottom line for the people who farm the earth - and for all of us who inhabit it - is proving more difficult to calculate.

But Barker of Save Our Seeds told Truthout that the silver lining in the stormclouds of corporate dominance of agriculture is that farmers are so fed up that they are beginning to take matters into their own hands. "Over the last few years, I see more and more people who are not waiting on their governments to do the right thing," she said. "Instead, they are making change as citizens of the earth in their local communities."

Barker cites as examples the growing transition toward chemical-free farming, the local food movement and the rise of small-scale regional seed banks to preserve agri-diversity. But she says it's vital for people to work politically as well.

"Congress constantly hears from agrichemical corporations," Barker says, "but they don't often hear from farmers." However that is gradually changing as outrage against corporations like Monsanto gets transmuted, in America's agricultural heartland, into the political will to oppose them.

" Monsanto produces the world’s top-selling herbicide; 40 percent of US crops contain its genes; it spends millions lobbying the government each year; and several of its factories are now toxic Superfund sites."

Did you say, "from our cradles to our graves?" I am faraway from you--I am from India. But I feel the difficulty of people in distress. The phrase "from our cradles to our graves" reminds me of a beautiful song--explosively inspiring. I enclose the lyric. The best version on YouTube is Patsy Cline.

Life is like a mountain railway,
With an engineer that’s brave;
We must make the run successful,
From the cradle to the grave;
Watch the curves, the fills, the tunnels;
Never falter, never fail;
Keep your hands upon the throttle,
And your eyes upon the rail.
Refrain:
Blessed Savior, Thou wilt guide us,
Till we reach that blissful shore,
Where the angels wait to join us
In Thy praise forevermore.
You will roll up grades of trial;
You will cross the bridge of strife;
See that Christ is your conductor
On this lightning train of life;
Always mindful of obstruction,
Do your duty, never fail;
Keep your hands upon the throttle,
And your eyes upon the rail.
You will often find obstructions,
Look for storms and wind and rain;
On a fill, or curve, or trestle
They will almost ditch your train;
Put your trust alone in Jesus,
Never falter, never fail;
Keep your hands upon the throttle,
And your eyes upon the rail.
As you roll across the trestle,
Spanning Jordan’s swelling tide,
You behold the Union Depot
Into which your train will glide;
There you’ll meet the Sup’rintendent,
God, the Father, God the Son,
With the hearty, joyous plaudit,
“Weary Pilgrim, welcome home.”

"A French farmer who can no longer perform his routine farming duties because of permanent pesticide injuries has had his day in court, literally, and the perpetrator of his injuries found guilty of chemical poisoning. The French court in Lyon ruled that Monsanto’s Lasso weedkiller formula, which contains the active ingredient alachlor, caused Paul Francois to develop lifelong neurological damage that manifests as persistent memory loss, headaches, and stuttering during speech."

Section 735 does not protect USDA or any biotech company from litigation or any court action related to the review of USDA’s approval of a biotech trait. Section 735 explicitly, and only temporarily, protects farmers who plant biotech traits in reliance on USDA review and approval.

The Secretary of Agriculture already has emergency authority to remove an approved biotech trait from the market at any time if a risk to human or plant health is discovered. This authority is unaffected by the Farmer Assurance Provision.

The provision does not restrict the right to challenge USDA’s determination that a product does not present a plant pest risk, nor does it prevent judicial review of that question or procedural matters related to an agency’s determination."

Monsanto has spent the past three decades wrecking our environment, poisoning our bodies, and pushing species of crops to the verge of extinction with a wide array of toxic products. And Monsanto's signature herbicide, Roundup, does all these things at once -- but Monsanto has lied over and over and said that the product is perfectly safe. Yet independent research has found the chemical is creating herbicide-resistant superweeds, making a species of butterfly extinct, and disrupting normal human body functions.

Monsanto has inflicted awful damage upon the Earth and its inhabitants, but the company is finally facing significant blowback. Now, while the tide in the ongoing war of consumers vs. the agriculture giant is swinging our way, it is the time to call on Monsanto to tell the truth about the effects of Roundup.

After years of lobbying European governments to allow the cultivation of Monsanto GMO plants and seeds, Monsanto finally quit lobbying because the company could not gain support on the continent. This week, an American appeals court has prevented Monsanto from suing farmers that might inadvertently grow Monsanto laced crops.

We're standing as consumers, shareholders and citizens of the world to say “enough is enough” and demanding Monsanto stop lying that Roundup is safe and start putting strict limits on the amount of Roundup it sells to any one area until we know more. Every day we delay is another species near extinction, another superweed created, another child who falls sick. But every signature we get brings us one step closer to stopping Monsanto from destroying our planet with Roundup -- and showing Monsanto that we won't let it continue leading us down that path of destruction.

Monsanto’s unapproved genetically engineered (GE) “Roundup Ready” wheat was found growing in a random Oregon field last week.

The farmer doesn’t know how it got there. Neither does anyone else since Monsanto ended field testing this type of wheat eight years ago. The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is currently investigating the extent of the contamination.

But in some ways this story isn’t surprising.

GE crops can’t be controlled. The fact is that environmental contamination is inevitable so long as companies like Monsanto are allowed to experiment with nature and our food supply. Putting an end to the production and use of these unnatural products is the only certain way to stop them from spreading.

Greenpeace and other groups have been warning about contamination of our food and the environment from GE crops for years now.

What’s happening in Oregon is a perfect example of why precautionary policies are necessary: Government and industry mechanisms to regulate and monitor open field tests to prevent contamination simply aren’t working. They never will.

There are so many questions surrounding what happened in Oregon. How did this wheat escape the field tests and end up growing on a farm – eight years later? Who is responsible? Who will pay for the decontamination and damages to farmers? How many other places is this wheat growing?

Monsanto abandoned testing this GE wheat back in 2005 – due to massive opposition by consumers and farmers in the US and abroad. Now, news of the recently-discovered contamination in Oregon is spreading rapidly around the world, causing countries like Japan and Korea to immediately stop importing US wheat.

No matter what companies like Monsanto try to tell us, it will never be possible to control nature. And there’s too much at stake to continue to allow this type of experimentation to take place.

GMOs have wonderful potential, the problem is they are controlled by capitalistic money hungry quasi-monopolies.

I went to the Monsanto March and was disturbed at seeing so many people against GMOs themselves. People misunderstand the issue of this science. They can't tell the difference between proper research articles, and vanity fair type articles. It was abysmal on that level. Many people reminded me of those who don't believe Global Warming is caused by humans. People ignorant, or scared of science.

It did feel good to march against the evil empire that is Monsanto. Let's open-source GMOs and make sure they are well researched by scientists all over the world who work together and cross-reference their tests.

Can you really not see that with corporate control of the food system is the problem and that GMOs in such a system can not be allowed? The problem is that GMOs are used to control the food supply. Your dreams of the good that GMOs can bring is Utopian.

how about higher yield crops & more resistant to pests ... at the expense of poisoning the soil, the water, the people, the children, the bee's.... nature itself... the law... the judicial system.... etc